Mother of two enrols in class 1 with her kids

ISLAMABAD - A 25-year-old woman in Pakistan enrolled in class 1 with her two children - in fulfilment of her lifelong dream to be educated.

Asma, a resident of Daudkhel in Punjab province, enrolled in the primary class with her two children in the Government Girls School in Mianwali.

When the school teacher asked Asma why was she enrolling herself, she said she always wanted to go to school but her parents had forbidden it.

“I always fought with them to let me go to school but they never let me. Then I got married and had children and I thought I had lost my chance,” the Express Tribune Monday quoted Asma as saying.

Asma nitially went to the school to register her daughters.

“I initially came here to register my daughters a few days ago, but when I went home I told my husband how much I regretted never having been to school myself,” she was reported as saying.

“He told me that I should enrol also…I am very lucky, most men would forbid such a thing,” she said.

Asma had her first class in December 2010 clad in a burqa as she sat along her children.

She said: “I always felt stupid because I never went to school and now I couldn’t even help my children with their school work so I decided to join them.”

Asma said that one of the school teachers, M.F. Abbas, encouraged her to enrol in the school.

Abbas said: “She (Asma) often came to pick up her children early and she would sit behind in the class and listen intently.”

“I told her that she should enrol herself. No one who loves to learn should be stopped. Everyone who wants to get an education should be able to do so, no matter how old they are,” he said.

“It has been a month since she has been here and she motivates my other students also.”

“I am especially proud of Asma’s family because they have set an example of tolerance by encouraging her,” he said.

Asma’s husband Latif said that his wife “has always regretted not having been to school and now that she can go she should”.

“I think people should go to school whenever they can get the chance at whatever age,” he said.

Latif said that Asma was now teaching her mother-in-law how to pronounce the English alphabet.

Asma admitted that her “children are ahead of me in class but that only makes me proud”.

“Now that I can write and am learning how to read, I hope to continue for as long as I can,” Asma said.

She said that an entire world is opening up for her.

Though she can “now understand bits and pieces of the newspaper”, she “can’t wait for the day that I will be able to read them entirely”.